Bug#618315: libsocket-getaddrinfo-perl: README.Debian misrepresents the nature of the bin/get{addr, name}info binaries

[Paul LeoNerd Evans]

Package: libsocket-getaddrinfo-perl
Version: 0.20-1
Severity: minor

README.Debian states:

---
Since version 0.20, upstream have distributed getnameinfo and getaddrinfo
as scripts in the bin directory. Since the functionality of these 
scripts is a subset of that provided by 'dig' and 'nslookup',
we feel that these are better considered examples and have been installed
as such. The utilities dig and nslookup can be found in the 'dnsutils' package.
---

This isn't really correct. 'dig' and 'nslookup' are both DNS clients;
they directly talk DNS to diagnose DNS problems.

bin/getaddrinfo is a tiny commandline wrapper around libc's
getaddrinfo(3) call, which may use DNS as part of its work, if that's
what /etc/nsswitch.conf says. getaddrinfo(3) is of course not limited to
DNS, taking information also from /etc/hosts or other libnss-* modules
such as LDAP or MySQL.

The functionalliy of bin/getaddrinfo is neither a subset of nor a
superset of that provided by dig or nslookup; it is however somewhat
related. The utility of bin/getaddrinfo is that it provides a shell
output showing _exactly_ what a normal userland binary would do to
resolve hostnames into addresses; INCLUDING the IPv4/IPv6 ordering. This
ordering can be the subject of many subtle bugs in connections, either
causing timeouts, delays, or outright failures. It is useful to have a
commandline debug tool for getaddrinfo(3) in such scenarios. Neither
'dig' nor 'nslookup' can be of any help diagnosing these problems.

I understand your decision not to ship these binaries in a package
called libFOO-perl; but please do include them somewhere. I for one rely
on them being installed on my machines for my own debugging and testing
of IPv6-related connection failures, and the fact that your upstream
package now removes them actually removes them from my own machines.

Perhaps these could be shipped in a -bin package? E.g. I notice a lot of
shared librares (e.g. ncurses) has a related package of binaries
(ncurses-bin). Perhaps these two binaries can be shipped in the
slightly-unwieldy  libsocket-getaddrinfo-perl-bin  ?

At the very least, can you please update the README.Debian to some
slightly more accurate wording?


-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages libsocket-getaddrinfo-perl depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.11.2-11  Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  perl                          5.10.1-17  Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 
ii  perl-base [perlapi-5.10.1]    5.10.1-17  minimal Perl system

libsocket-getaddrinfo-perl recommends no packages.

Versions of packages libsocket-getaddrinfo-perl suggests:
ii  dnsutils                  1:9.7.3.dfsg-1 Clients provided with BIND

-- no debconf information